It’s the last day of the month and the first Sunday in Advent which carries with it the theme of hope. But there seems to be so little hope in both America and the world today. Our Nation still is deeply polarized. Persons who previously relied on SNAP support to buy groceries are now told they must reapply, health care premiums are skyrocketing, and families are being torn apart as long-term residents are deported.
Then there are wars and oppression in Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, the West Bank, and Sudan. Hope seems to be an empty word for so many. How do we find hope? Is hope nothing more than an elusive dream, a fantasy fed to us to keep us quiet in the face of social discontent?
One reading for the day is from Isaiah, which has a promise of peace. This as Trump has announced we just might invade Venezuela. Where is hope? We start with one candle in the Advent wreath, which seems so miniscule compared to the actions of the big powers in the world. If we remember that hope is not a state but a process in which we participate, then with God’s strength, we can be hopeful that our actions, seemingly small, will count for good against the many evils we see around us.
Prayer for the Day
Coming when we least expect it, You make us stop,
And reflect how our planned and scheduled lives must change;
Offering hope through food pantries and women’s shelters,
You disrupt our lives and light the dark places in our souls.
Grant that we may live and act in the hope only You can give,
For so much around us seems hopeless at times.
In the name of the One who gives us our hope,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.
Eleanor Roosevelt, humanitarian (1884-1962)
We live in hope because we believe, like St. Paul, that love never dies. Human beings in the historical process have created enclaves of love by their active practice of solidarity throughout the world, and with a view to the full-orbed liberation of peoples and all humanity.
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentine painter, writer, from his1990 Nobel Lecture
God shall judge between the nationsand shall decide disputes for many peoples;
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
Isaiah 2: 4